The Caretaker — Part 3

This is part 3 of a 9-part story. You can find part 1 here

The first thing Hugh did was make himself dinner. He was accustomed to stopping at a restaurant on his way home from work, and his stomach’s schedule had been thrown off. While perusing the kitchen’s well-stocked supplies, he found a stack of his favorite frozen pizzas. He put one in the oven (years of experience had taught him the perfect amount of time it needed to cook while the oven heated up) and headed back towards the library.

Hugh was a reader, but his tastes were very specific. He like stories about things that could never happen in real life: science fiction, fantasy, horror, murder mysteries, etc. The more realistic a story, the faster he lost interest. His everyday life was boring enough without reading about someone else’s boring, everyday life.

The real problem with books was that there were so many. For every good book, there were a hundred bad ones. He was a completionist, and always hated stopping midway (he had trudged through some truly awful books to satisfy this impulse), so he chose his books carefully.

Hugh was expecting to find slim pickings, despite the library’s size, but was pleasantly surprised at the selection. Many of his favorite novels, both classic and modern, were included. Although there were still quite a few that looked dull, whoever…